Environmental News
 

I didn't see a thread specifically for news about the things that are happening to our environment, so I thought I would start one.

I look forward to learning some things from what other people post here.

But since I started the thread, I'll go first.

Plastic Lies

If climbing Mount Everest is on your bucket list, you might want to do it soon while it's still possible.
 

‘Super sherpa’ says climate change may make Mount Everest unclimbable

From Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Climate change is altering the face of the Himalayas, devastating farming communities and making Mount Everest increasingly treacherous to climb, some of the world’s top mountaineers have warned.

Apa Sherpa, the Nepali climber who has conquered Mount Everest a record 21 times, said he was disturbed by the lack of snow on the world’s highest peak, caused by rising temperatures.

“In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers,” he told AFP.

“Also, climbing is becoming more difficult because when you are on a mountain you can wear crampons but it’s very dangerous and very slippery to walk on bare rock with crampons.”

Speaking after completing the first third of a gruelling 1,700-kilometre (1,100-mile) trek across the Himalayas, Apa Sherpa would not rule out the possibility of Everest being unclimbable in the coming years.

“What will happen in the future I cannot say but this much I can say from my own experiences — it has changed a lot,” he said an an interview with AFP in the village of Gati, 16 kilometres from Nepal’s border with Tibet.

The 51-year-old father-of-three, dubbed “Super Sherpa”, began his working life as a farmer but turned to the tourism industry and mountaineering after he lost all his possessions when a glacial lake burst in 1985.

He is on a 120-day walk dubbed the Climate Smart Celebrity Trek with another of the world’s top climbers, Nepali Dawa Steven Sherpa, with the pair expected to reach the finish on May 13.

The expedition, the first official hike along the length of Nepal’s Great Himalayan Trail since it opened last year, will take in some of the world’s most rugged landscapes and see the duo ascending beyond 6,000 metres (19,600 feet).

“I want to understand the impact of climate change on other people but also I’d like tourism to play a roll in changing their lives as it has changed mine,” said Apa Sherpa.

Research published by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) last year showed Nepal’s glaciers had shrunk by 21 percent over 30 years.

A three-year research project led by ICIMOD showed 10 glaciers surveyed in the region all are shrinking, with a marked acceleration in loss of ice between 2002 and 2005.

Scientists say the effects of climate change could be devastating, as the Himalayas provide food and energy for 1.3 billion people living in downstream river basins.

Environmental campaigners refer to the mountain range as the “third pole” and say the melting glaciers are the biggest potential contributors to rising sea levels after the North and South Poles.

Scientists blame confusion and scepticism over climate change on a blunder in a 2007 United Nations report which falsely claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by as soon as 2035.

On the ground, however, mountain communities are already alarmed by dramatic shifts in weather patterns, two-time Everest summiteer Dawa Steven Sherpa told AFP as he and Apa completed the first 530 kilometres of their trek.

“Right from the beginning we saw the effects of climate change on tea plantations in Ilam district,” he said.

“These areas would not normally get frost and it is destroying their entire crop. These are cash crops that employ thousands of people, even on one farm.

“From what the local people are saying, it’s getting colder in the winter and hotter in the summer and it is the cold they are worried about.”

How “Drill, Baby, Drill” and “Yes We Can” Got Married
by Subhankar Banerjee

American military prefers to make preemptive strikes. We know this. In America, corporations have enormous influence over the government—these days they essentially run the government. We know this too. And now a giant corporation has made a preemptive strike against nonprofit organizations. “Arctic Ocean drilling: Shell launches preemptive legal strike” is the title of a recent Los Angeles Times article. Shell’s legal attack is against REDOIL—a small indigenous human rights organization in Alaska and 12 environmental organizations fighting to stop dangerous drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas in Arctic Alaska—Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, Pacific Environment, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society. This is historic.

On Thursday, I requested Cindy Shogan, Executive Director of Alaska Wilderness League in Washington, D.C. about how she would respond. Following is the email statement I received from her:

“In a true–life David vs. Goliath parable, Royal Dutch Shell, a foreign company that makes millions of dollars in profits per hour, is forcing Alaska Wilderness League, a grassroots–based nonprofit with the sole purpose of advocating for Alaska’s lands, waters and native people, into court—and seeking fees and costs against us. I suppose if you’re like Shell, and you have billions of dollars to throw around, you can engage in this desperate ploy, instead of proving on the ground that you can actually clean up an oil spill in Arctic conditions.

My response to Shell is this: Alaska Wilderness League will not be bullied. We will take the time we need to evaluate whether Shell’s oil spill response plan, for the most aggressive course of Arctic Ocean drilling ever proposed in history, meets the letter of the law. We owe that much to the Iñupiat people who have thrived on Alaska’s Arctic coast for thousands of years, and the extraordinary Arctic ecosystem that is among the most vital in the world.”

How did we get here? I’d suggest through a cruel marriage of two phrases. You perhaps never thought that two phrases could marry, right? And, that they can even produce babies, right? In America, anything is possible.

Once upon a time vice–presidential hopeful Sarah Palin uttered the now (in)famous phrase “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Also, once upon a time presidential hopeful Barack Obama uttered the now (in)famous phrase “Yes We Can.” These two phrases got married along the way, and will now produce their baby “Kill, Baby, Kill.”

Recently I was at a panel with Robert (Bob) Emmet Hernan, former New York State assistant attorney general. Bob pointed out that something remarkable has happened in the US during the past decade—it is stealing of the meaning of a phrase: “We must reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” Both Big Oil and the environmental activists seized upon that phrase. The activists wanted to reduce dependence on foreign oil and move America toward clean, sustainable energy, and create jobs, lot of jobs, along the way. Big Oil on the other hand wanted to reduce dependence on foreign oil by drilling every place in North America—not easy oil, but what resource expert Michael Klare has called extreme energy—dirty tar sands oil; oil in the deep ocean in the Gulf of Mexico; and perhaps most dangerous of all, oil in the harsh environment of the Arctic Ocean. Bob pointed out, “Big Oil has successfully stolen the phrase reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” That is “Drill, Baby, Drill” everywhere in North America. And, the Obama administration is going along with all those projects (and there is fracking also). That is “Yes We Can” drill everywhere.

That is how those two phrases got married.

But why?

Penny at the Pump Returns

In January the Obama administration rejected the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The republicans complained about high gas prices and made the argument that the tar sands crude would indeed bring down price at the pump. So, recently the White House did a 180–flip. In a recent op–ed Jim Hightower writes that the republicans’ use of “gas price pain as a whip for lashing out at Obama’s January decision to reject the infamous Keystone XL pipeline” is a “cynical political stunt.” He continues on to say correctly, “The pipeline and the toxic crude it’ll carry across six states would do absolutely nothing to shave even a penny off of the price we pay at the pump.”

Each time Big Oil wants approval on a dirty oil project, they and their cronies in Congress and Cabinet creatively use “price at the pump” as the most powerful argument to fool the American public. In 2005, when the Bush administration was pushing hard to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska—the most biodiverse conservation area in the entire Arctic, to oil and gas development, they had used that same argument—we had high gas prices then too. At that time, activist Carol Hoover and I co–designed an ad in collaboration with Alaska Wilderness League, Gwich’in Steering Committee and The Wilderness Society that came to be known as the Penny ad. The text of the ad began with these words: “According to the latest data from the Department of Energy, if Congress lets the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, you’ll save a whopping penny a gallon at the pump. And of course you wouldn’t even see that penny until 2025.” We used one of my photos of pregnant female caribou from the Porcupine River herd migrating over frozen Coleen River as the backdrop. It was printed full page in the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today on November 14, 2005. You can see the Penny ad here. Because of the hard work of the activist community, we prevailed and defeated all of Bush’s attempts to sell off the Arctic Refuge to Big Oil.

Hightower is correct in saying that if we allow the Keystone XL pipeline today, it “would do absolutely nothing to shave even a penny off of the price we pay at the pump.”

McClatchy Newspapers reported, “energy experts say that the Keystone XL pipeline wouldn’t do much to lower gasoline prices. The recent price spike stems largely from speculators bidding up prices at a time of growing fear of future oil–supply disruptions if a war with Iran develops over its nuclear program.”

So why did Obama make the 180–flip? The obvious reason is that he wants to get reelected, and so he is going where the money is flowing (read: Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Coal). But it’s more than that—US has decided to stay firm on the coaley–oily–gassy path when it comes to energy, rather than make the hard choice of taking the path of clean energy and create real jobs.

Shell’s Dangerous Game

On February 17 the Obama administration approved Shell’s spill response plan in the Chukchi Sea. But why is Obama giving Shell the key to destroy the Arctic?

Unlike Hightower’s assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline issue—the usual Republicans pushing the Democrats argument isn’t true in this case. Despite tremendous opposition from environmental and indigenous human rights organizations, in 2009 when Obama was still riding the wave of popularity, his administration had approved Shell’s plan to drill five exploratory wells—two in the Beaufort and three in the Chukchi Seas. Then, on March 31, 2010 standing in front of an “environmentally friendly” F–18 Green Hornet fighter jet the President had announced a new energy proposal, which would open up vast expanses of America’s coastlines, including the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, to oil and gas development. BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster that spilled more than 200 million gallons of crude oil and extremely large amount of methane in the Gulf of Mexico put a damper, and the President did a temporary 180–flip. But slowly and surely his administration has been rubber–stamping permits after permits—for Shell. The government has not done a thorough Environmental Impact Statement; and knows full well that Shell does not have the technology or the preparedness to respond to a spill in the frozen Arctic Ocean, and yet, in approving these permits the administration is essentially saying, “Yes We Can” drill in the Arctic Ocean.

So the story goes, “Drill, Baby, Drill,” marries “Yes We Can.”

If you take a bit of distance from “price at the pump” and other bogus arguments, you’ll realize that North America is determined to stay on course with fossil fuel driven energy for this century, and avoid any significant direction toward clean, sustainable energy, and deal with the devastating issue of climate change—the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. That is a major crime against all species of this earth. In 2010, I wrote a piece, “STOP: Another One Hundred Years of Fossil–Digging in North America?” that you can read here. That nightmare is becoming reality now—Shell’s Arctic Ocean drilling; Keystone XL pipeline and consequently massive expansion of tar sands extraction in Alberta; and major expansion of the deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico—are all moving forward.

What can you do?

Right now I’d urge you to sign the Alaska Wilderness League petition, Tell the President: “Shell No” to Arctic Drilling.

And, fight, yes, fight we must against all those who like to steal phrases, and along the way steal the meaning of survival for all species on earth. It is possible to defeat destructive projects when a community fights and keeps on fighting. Just in the last two weeks we have had two good news—the New Mexico anti–nuclear campaign stopped after an eight–year long battle a Plutonium Bomb Factory; and the anti–coal campaign in Chicago after a decade–long battle shut down two Model–T–era coal fired power plants in a historic victory. I recently edited an anthology “Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point” that will be published by Seven Stories Press in June. In the book we offer many stories and ideas of resistance–against–destruction. You can also check out the ClimateStoryTellers special series on Shell’s Arctic drilling here.

The US government continues to ignore what the Iñupiat people and the environmental organizations have to say about Shell’s Arctic Ocean drilling, so it is no surprise that we are at this historic moment when an Oil Giant has made a preemptive legal strike against these nonprofit organizations. Only two centuries ago the US government supported a policy that exterminated nearly 50 million buffalo in less than one hundred years and destroyed the way of life of the Native American communities. Will the US government repeat that today by sending Shell to the harsh Arctic Ocean and along the way destroy the rich marine habitat and the way of life of the Iñupiat communities?

Let us thank our colleagues at Alaska Wilderness League and other organizations who have been sued by Shell. Instead of backing down they’re speaking truth to power, as Cindy has articulated so well, “Alaska Wilderness League will not be bullied.”

Subscribing...

McDonald’s Trials to Stop Using Styrofoam Cups

by Paul Canning, March 26, 2012

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25 years ago, a campaign started to get McDonald’s to replace its use of Styrofoam. In 1990, McDonald’s said they would phase it out but that only happened with burger boxes. Now they actually are testing paper cups in thousands of stores, following a shareholder resolution.

These cups don’t quickly degrade, fill up landfill and end up in places like the great Pacific garbage patch. The chemicals and waste used to produce them pollute and laching from them may effect health.

Conrad MacKerron, of corporate accountability group As You Sow, described the move as “a great first step for McDonald’s.”

“Given the company’s history of using high levels of recycled content in other food packaging, we hope that it follows suit with its cups and also establishes a robust recycling program for post-consumer waste left in its restaurants,” he said in a statement. MacKerron’s group introduced a shareholder proposal last summer, asking McDonald’s to consider alternatives to polystyrene. Last year, the Republicans in Congress fought a battle to get Styrofoam cups back in their cafeteria as part of the fight against the liberty-removing House composting program.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/mcdonald...#ixzz1qJz7jFkW

How could it not be??????
 

Radiation update provided by Daisy Luther and co-author NinaO. This report was originally published at Inalienably Yours.
The mainstream media and the federal government will soon have the blood of the world on it’s hands.

Radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster in Japan is now actively in the ecosystem all along the North American west coast… even the sea weed is now radiated. The Vancouver Sun reported one year ago that the seaweed tested from waters off the coast of British Columbia were 4 times the amount considered safe. No further test results were released after the initial report.

The governments of the United States and Canada are not conducting tests for radioactivity – at least not to the knowledge of the public. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed to continue purchasing seafood from Japan, despite the fact that the food is not being tested for radioactive contamination. Last November, independent testing in Japan showed 65 per cent of the catches tested positive for cesium (a radioactive material). Instead of refusing to purchase the poisoned fish, food safety agencies in both the United States and Canada have simply raised the “acceptable level of radiation.” We can’t go offending the Japanese after promising to buy their tainted goods, now can we?

After the North American governments refused to fund testing, oceanographer Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the non-profit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass, along with Nicholas Fisher, a marine sciences professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and other concerned scientists, managed to secure private funding for a Pacific research voyage. The results?

Cesium levels in the Pacific had initially gone up an astonishing 45 million times above pre-accident levels. The levels then declined rapidly for a while, but after that, they unexpectedly levelled off.

In July, cesium levels stopped declining and remained stuck at 10,000 times above pre-accident levels.

This means the ocean isn’t diluting the radiation as expected. If it had been, cesium levels would have kept falling.

The finding suggests that radiation is still being released into the ocean long after the accident in March, 2011.

Less than two weeks after the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster, Michael Kane, an investigative journalist, reported, “In the wake of the continuing nuclear tragedy in Japan, the United States government is still moving quickly to increase the amounts of radiation the population can “safely” absorb by raising the safe zone for exposure to levels designed to protect the government and nuclear industry more than human life.”

The radiation has absolutely reached the shores of North America. Water samples from across the continent have tested positive for unsafe levels of radioactivity. The levels exceeded federal drinking water thresholds, known as maximum contaminant levels, or MCL, by as much as 181 times.”This means that the complete ecosystem of the Pacific Ocean is now poisoned with radiation and we aren’t being warned.

Samples of milk taken across the United States have shown radiation at levels 2000 percent higher than EPA maximums. The reason that milk is so significant is that it it representative of the entire food supply. According to an article published on Natural News, “Cows consume grass and are exposed to the same elements as food crops and water supplies. In other words, when cows’ milk starts testing positive for high levels of radioactive elements, this is indicative of radioactive contamination of the entire food supply.”

The GMO Food and Drug Pushers Administration and the EnvironmentalDeception Protection Agency, instead of refusing to prohibit the sale of tainted foods and mandatory testing of foods produced and harvested from the Pacific Coast, have simply raised the “acceptable levels” of radioactive material in foods.

Clearly, the “it’s-all-for-your-own-good” government will not protect us, or even inform us of the dangers so we can protect ourselves, because it might dip into the pockets of the global elite, the nuclear energy industry, and the food industries. There is big money behind this cover-up. Refusing to purchase and consume their tainted goods is the best way to fight back, while keeping our families safe and healthy.

How can we protect ourselves? First, be aware of what items are likely to be highly tainted.

1.) SEAFOOD: Question the origin of ALL seafood. Fish and crustaceans from the Pacific Ocean should all be considered to be poisoned with radiation.

2.) WATER: The rainfall and snowfall are all radiated. Do not drink any water that has not been filtered. The tap water that flows from your faucet has NOT been treated to rid it of radioactive particles. A recent report from the NY Times stated, “A rooftop water monitoring program managed by UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during torrential downpours …

3.) DAIRY PRODUCTS: Milk and milk products from the West Coast states currently have the highest levels of radiation in North America.

4.) PRODUCE: Leafy Vegetables, Wines, Tomatoes, Strawberries….all produce from California or any other West Coast State are also likely to be tainted.

5.) MEAT: If a animal eats any leafy vegetable all along the West Coast, that animal has consumed radiation, and is poisoned. This is any animal from cows, pigs, goats, sheep to wild deer and other game.

If you eat the above foods from areas with high radiation levels, you are eating radiation and feeding it to your children. Slowly the radiation levels within your body will build up. This is PERMANENT.

Infant mortality rates across the United States have increased by more than 35% since the nuclear disaster, according to a court statement by Dr. with independent scientist Leuren Moret, MA, PhD. A study published in The International Journal of Medicine indicates that more than 20,000 deaths right here in North America can be directly attributed to the release of radioactive material from Fukushima.

Radioactive isotopes of the type released from Fukushima have a half life of 30,000 years. This means that we must permanently change the way we prepare our food.

Wash your food with soap and rinse it in filtered water.
Be aware of the origins of your vegetables, fish, game and seafood.
Keep abreast of radiation levels to help monitor where your food is acquired.
Use only filtered water for drinking, cooking and ice.
Check in tomorrow at Inalienably Yours to read more about our increasingly toxic land and the intentional poisoning of the United States.

Over 600 Dolphins Found Dead

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Jake Richardson
April 4, 2012

On beaches in Peru well over 600 dead dolphins have been found by conservationists from an organization called BlueVoice.org. The head of this group was quoted in MSNBC as saying the deceased dolphin count is 615, but on the the Blue Voice blog, the number was said to be potentially much higher by a marine mammal rescue director in Peru. In fact the Blue Voice blog says the stranding could be the largest dolphin mortality event yet recorded.

“I was stunned to hear we’d counted over 200 dolphins. We hit a length of beach no more than 100 yards long in which we found ten dolphins of varying levels of decomposition. The numbers continued to mount. By the time the rising tide forced us off the beach the count had reached 615, counted over 135 kilometers,” said a Blue Voice employee who visited Peru. It sounds like there could be many more. It isn’t clear yet exactly what caused the deaths. One speculation is sonic testing conducted by oil companies, because it is believed the very loud noises can cause internal bleeding in dolphins. (Sound travels faster in water, than in air.)

“We have been noting that the animals were suffering from acute decompression syndrome – that is to say, a violent death produced by an acoustic boom that disorients the animal and produces haemorrhages which cause the animal to end up dying on the beach,” said ORCA director Dr Carlos Yaipen. (Source: 3news) Another speculation is that a disease caused an epidemic. In the United States an increase in deadly dolphin strandings in the Gulf has been tied to habitat damage due to the huge oil catastrophe, a situation which is ongoing because there is still some oil in the Gulf.

BlueVoice.org is an ocean conservation organization founded by Hardy Jones and Ted Danson. They have been working to help save marine mammals and protect habitats for about twelve years.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/ove...#ixzz1rJRySQf9

NO!
 

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Next week, the USDA will decide whether to allow Monsanto and Dow to introduce one half of the chemical mixture Agent Orange into our food supply. Widescale use of Roundup has led to a new generation of resistant weeds, and the next step in the pesticide arms race is 2,4-D -- a chemical linked to cancer, Parkinson's and reproductive problems.

Farmers that sign up to use genetically-engineered 2,4-D-resistant corn will be required to spray down their fields with both 2,4-D and Roundup, double-dosing our food, our soil and our waterways with the toxins. Some experts estimate this will increase the use of 2,4-D 50-fold, even though the EPA says the chemical is already our seventh-largest source of dioxins -- nasty, highly toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain and cause cancer, developmental damage, and birth defects.

We can stop this. The use of 2,4-D is banned entirely in parts of Canada and Europe, and right now the US Department of Agriculture is accepting public comments on 2,4-D to decide whether or not to approve the widespread industrial use of the toxin.

Add your name to our letter to the USDA urging them to deny approval for Dow's 2,4-D-resistant GMO corn.

This is part of a growing problem, an escalating herbicide war going on across America’s heartland. From 1996 to 2008, herbicide usage increased by 383 million pounds. Nearly half of this took place between 2007 and 2008 after the introduction of another strain of herbicide-resistant plant pushed by Dow. Like Roundup before it, 2,4-D is only a temporary solution that will require more and more tons of toxins and more and more potent chemicals leaching into our food supply.

2,4-D is nasty stuff and has been linked to a number of health problems, such as tripling the rates of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in Nebraska farmworkers exposed to it and causing reproductive problems -- birth defects and high rates of miscarriage -- in both mice and men exposed to it in the lab and field.

Tell the USDA - we don’t want Monsanto’s toxic pesticide.

-Kaytee, Claiborne Taren and the rest of the team

The Age of the Antrhopocene
 

The film was commissioned by the Planet Under Pressure conference, London 26-29 March, a major international conference focusing on solutions.
planetunderpressure2012.net

Thanks to my dear friend Hollylane and the original poster of this information. Please let me know if you know or hear anything more about this. I live uncomfortably close to the target area.

http://naturalsociety.com/indiana-ra...-stays-silent/

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The Drought Of 2012

Here's the drought map updated weekly
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/monitor.html
Instead of July it looks like September here with leaves falling and brown lawns. Even the bugs are dying of thirst, so they eat everything the drought does'nt kill. Even the bee's are starving for nectar and are raiding each other's hives and getting more aggressive near their own. The commercial crops are looking miserable. and the price will go up. Corn is already at a high price due to using it for ethanol. You'd think Congress would drop the ethanol mandate when it gets too high. Natural gas is getting a little cheaper though due to fracking.

Efforts to save grounded Shell Arctic rig postponed


Attempts to rescue a Shell drill rig grounded off the Alaskan coast have been delayed because of high seas and strong winds.

The rig, named Kulluk, ran aground on Monday after drifting in stormy weather as it was being towed.

The rig is grounded on the south-east side of Sitkalidak Island.

The US Coast Guard said the rig, carrying about 143,000 gallons of diesel and about 12,000 gallons of other oil products, appears stable.

A Coast Guard plane and helicopter flew over the Kulluk on Tuesday to assess the rig and said it did not appear to be leaking.

"There is no sign of a release of any product," Coast Guard Capt Paul Mehler said.

He said a team made up of Shell, Coast Guard and local officials aimed to get salvagers aboard the Kulluk to assess it and then refloat the rig.
Endangered species

Shell has said that the design of the Kulluk - with fuel tanks isolated in the centre of the vessel and encased in heavy steel - means that a significant spill is unlikely.


However, spill response equipment was being prepared in the event of a leak in the area which is home to at least two endangered species, as well as harbour seals, salmon and sea lions.

Environmentalists have said the incident illustrates the risk of drilling for oil in a fragile region.


"Shell and its contractors are no match for Alaska's weather and sea conditions either during drilling operations or during transit," Lois Epstein, Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society told Reuters.

The rig was being moved for maintenance and upgrades when it broke away from one of its tow-lines on Monday afternoon.

Its 18-member crew had already been evacuated by the Coast Guard on Saturday because of the risk of storms.

Sean Churchfield, operations manager for Shell Alaska, could not explain why the Kulluk had been caught in the weather.


"I can't give you a specific answer, but I do not believe we would want to tow it in these sorts of conditions," he said.

Hope it's Ok to post this here. I definitely consider it to be a world issue. It's such an emotional trigger for me, because something about dolphins are so sentient.
I can't believe Japan won the bid to host the 2016 summer Olympics with the Dolphin slaughters still going on.
WTF.

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http://www.opsociety.org/issues/dolp...ghter-in-taiji

http://savejapandolphins.org

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San Francisco Experiencing Driest Start To Year Since 1850s

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...r-since-1850s/

Plastic pollution
 

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...llowed-plastic

BBC News Science & Environment 3/29/2013
 

European forests near 'carbon saturation point'

European forests are showing signs of reaching a saturation point as carbon sinks, a study has suggested.

Since 2005, the amount of atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the continent's trees has been slowing, researchers reported.

Writing in Nature Climate Change, they said this was a result of a declining volume of trees, deforestation and the impact of natural disturbances.

Carbon sinks play a key role in the global carbon cycle and are promoted as a way to offset rising emissions.

Writing in their paper, the scientists said the continent's forests had been recovering in recent times after centuries of stock decline and deforestation.

The growth had also provided a "persistent carbon sink", which was projected to continue for decades.

However, the team's study observed three warnings that the carbon sink provided by Europe's tree stands was nearing a saturation point.

"First, the stem volume increment rate (of individual trees) is decreasing and thus the sink is curbing after decades of increase," they wrote.

"Second, land use is intensifying, thereby leading to deforestation and associated carbon losses.

"Third, natural disturbances (eg wildfires) are increasing and, as a consequence, so are the emissions of CO2."

Co-author Gert-Jan Nabuurs from Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, said: "All of this together means that the increase in the size of the sink is stopping; it is even declining a little.

"We see this as the first signs of a saturating sink," he told BBC News.

Sinking feeling

The carbon cycle is the process by which carbon - essential for life on the planet - is transferred between land (geosphere and terrestrial biosphere), sea (hydrosphere) and the atmosphere.

Carbon sinks refers to the capacity of key components in the cycle - such as the soil, oceans, rock and fossil fuels - to store carbon, preventing it from being recycled, eg between the land and the atmosphere.

Since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has modified the cycle as a result of burning fossil fuels and land-use change.

Burning fossil fuels has resulted in vast amounts of carbon previously locked in the geosphere being released into the atmosphere.

Land-use change - such as urbanisation and deforestation - has reduced the size of the biosphere, which removes carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Dr Nabuurs explained that saturation referred to the point where the natural carbon sinks were unable to keep pace and absorb the additional atmospheric carbon being released by human activities.

He said emissions had risen a lot over the past decade, primarily through the rise of emerging economies in countries such as China, India and Brazil.

The researcher's conclusions appear to contradict the State of Europe's Forests report in 2011 that showed forest cover in Europe had continued to increase. The report said trees covered almost half of Europe's land area and absorbed about 10% of Europe's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

But Dr Nabuurs said that the rate of afforestation was slowing, adding that a sizeable proportion of forests were mature stands of trees, which were mainly planted in the early part of the 20th Century or in the post-World War II period.

"These forests have now reached 70-80 years old and are starting a phase in the life of a tree where the growth rate starts to come down," he explained.

"So you have large areas of old forest and even if you add these relatively small areas of new forest, this does not compensate for the loss of growth rate in the old forests."

However, mature woodlands have been recognised as a key habitat for supporting and conserving biodiversity.

Will this lead to policymakers making a choice between forests' ecological value and their effectiveness at sequestering CO2?

"That is indeed a large challenge," said Dr Nabuurs.

"Old forests in Europe are necessary and we certainly need those forests.

"I think policymakers at a national level and within the EU have to be clear that in certain regions, within valuable habitats, that the focus is on old forests and biodiversity.

"But in other regions, maybe it is time to concentrate more on continuous wood production again and rejuvenate forests again, so then you have growing forests and a continuous flow of wood products.

"This seems to be the optimal way to address both the need for wood products and maintaining a carbon sink in growing forests."

'Real problem'

The study's findings could have implications for EU and member state's climate mitigation efforts to reduce emissions.

"Most European nations, as part of their emissions reduction commitments, can also use forest carbon sinks," Dr Nabuurs observed.

"Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries were voluntarily choosing to take that sink into account.

"But in the next commitment period, forest management will be an obligatory part of reaching the emissions reduction targets.

"For some countries, the sink is a very large part of their emissions reduction commitment so the saturation is a real problem, requiring them to take additional measures, for example in the electricity generation or transport sectors."

As a sizeable proportion of Europe's forest areas are owned by smallholders, the process of changing the age-profile of the continent's tree cover could prove challenging with some owners resisting the idea of increasing wood production and tree harvesting.

One potential solution is a pan-European, legally binding agreement on forest management that would look to balance the ecological value of forests against the trees' commercial and climate mitigation value.

Delegates from more than 40 nations have been working on such a framework since 2011.

However, talks stalled in June when negotiators were unable to reach agreement on a number of technicalities.

"This is a very important process where all the European states are working towards a legally binding agreement," Dr Nabuurs commented.

"It is a very important framework in which the member states can devise their own national policies.

"It is obvious that within nations, forest policy is often quite weak. To strengthen this, this agreement is certainly necessary."

Talks are set to resume in the autumn, with the aim of having a draft agreement in place by mid-November for EU forestry ministers to consider.

Logging Bill Passes House With Democrats Joining GOP To Cut Rural Education Funding



WASHINGTON -- The partisan drama surrounding the House GOP's defund-Obamacare bill on Friday obscured the passage of another piece of legislation with modest bipartisan support. Shortly after the Obamacare vote, the House approved a logging bill that would effectively privatize broad swaths of national forest land, mandate the logging of national forests, and cut education funding for some rural schools.

The bill, aggressively opposed by environmental groups and President Barack Obama, passed with bipartisan support by a vote of 244-172, with 17 Democrats joining 227 Republicans to approve it. Democrats were pressed hard to vote for the bill by, among others, the National Education Association, a teachers union with 3 million members, and by the typically environmentally friendly Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). Four Republicans and 11 Democrats did not vote.

The creatively titled "Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act" would require most national forest land with at least 20 cubic feet of available timber -- roughly one mid-sized tree -- to be designated as available for logging. The land would be subject to aggressive annual logging quotas, except for territory in the National Wilderness Preservation System and where federal rules prohibit the removal of vegetation. The measure would require at least 200,000 additional acres of national forest to be opened for development to generate revenue for local governments.

Obama has threatened to veto the bill. Every major U.S. environmental group views the legislation as an ecological nightmare.

"It's arguably one of the worst forestry bills our nation has seen in decades," said Ani Kame'enui, a Washington Sierra Club representative. "It overrides essentially all laws and regulations of 100 years of professional forest management."

Alex Taurel, deputy legislative director with the League of Conservation Voters, called the bill "extreme."

"Threatening a government shutdown over Obamacare isn't the only radical proposal House Republicans put forward this week," Taurel said. "Their extreme forestry bill would spur massive amounts of logging that would decimate forests Americans count on for clean drinking water, recreation, and healthy fish and wildlife habitat."

School districts that include national forest land face chronic funding problems. Land development is restricted in national forests, leaving little for the school districts to tax to fund local schools. For decades, funding for these districts came from logging.

After years of declining logging revenue, Congress switched to a different funding scheme in 2000, giving rural counties the option to receive direct payments from the federal government. Counties typically accept the direct payments because it means more money than a 25 percent share of logging proceeds. The bill that cleared the House on Friday will end the direct aid program after one year, leaving schools dependent on logging money.

The NEA and the National Association of Counties -- which typically support Democratic spending priorities -- joined industrial logging companies lobbying in favor of the bill.

"We refer to this as 'active management,'" said NEA's Mary Kusler. "We knew that this safety net was not going to last forever. So this is a transition bill from a safety net to a path forward."

The bill nevertheless would cut funding for rural schools and counties. County governments will see a funding decline of $70 million a year under the bill, with rural school districts losing $65 million, according to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office data by Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based economic research firm. While such numbers are minuscule in the context of the federal budget, they are significant for local governments, which have been forced to cut teachers and other government workers in recent years.

"You can't cut enough to make up for what they're getting from the treasury now," Chris Mehl, Headwaters Economics policy director, told HuffPost.

The American Federation of Teachers did not take a position on the bill.

The bill's promises of new forest fire prevention policies helped persuade some Democrats to cross the aisle. Ten of the 17 Democrats who voted for the bill come from Western states susceptible to wildfires. DeFazio authored a provision that would exempt land in 18 Oregon counties from federal environmental laws, allowing higher logging revenues. The Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife and other groups said DeFazio's bill would "privatize" national forest land by exempting it from federal regulations and turning it over to industrial production. A DeFazio representative was not available for comment.

"It makes no sense from a conservation standpoint and it makes no sense from a community standpoint," said Rebecca Judd, legislative counsel for Earthjustice. Judd called the bill "one of the most terrible pieces of forest legislation that we've seen in a long time."

Even the anti-wildfire provisions pose problems for environmentalists, who argued that the bill is an irresponsible version of a decade-old GOP bill signed into law by President George W. Bush. That legislation gave the government wide authority to engage in logging on public land for fire prevention purposes, but targeted projects that would protect communities most in danger of wildfires and included safeguards for ecologically sensitive areas.

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a congressional committee hearing April 11 there was no need for more laws addressing wildfires. DeFazio asked Tidwell if the forest service was impeded by any environmental law constraints or budgetary concerns. Tidwell replied: "It's a capacity issue right now."

DeFazio responded: "So it's a budgetary constraint. You don't have enough money to do the projects, the projects you could do under the existing laws … Is that correct?"

Tidwell said DeFazio had it right. The Forest Service just needed more funding.

Greenpeace Activists May Be Charged with Terrorism After Russian Coastguard Storms Ship in Arctic
Activists trying to stop the work of an oil rig in Arctic waters are being held on board at gunpoint.


Jumping from helicopters and slithering down ropes, more than a dozen armed Russian coastguard workers boarded a Greenpeace ship and took custody of the activists on board, to stop them from disrupting the work of a controversial oil rig.

After a scuffle between the activists and the Russian security forces, the 29 activists, including six British nationals, are apparently being held on board at gunpoint, while the ship is forcibly towed to the Arctic port of Murmansk.

The Russian coastguard, which is controlled by the FSB security services, boarded the Arctic Sunrise late on Thursday night near Prirazlomnaya, a drilling platform in the Pechora Sea, close to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

The activists were protesting against the rig, operated by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, which is due to come online soon, and had attempted to climb aboard it and stop work.

The ship's crew remain in the custody of armed Russian security forces and could be charged with terrorism.

The FSB said it had been tracking the vessel since it left the Norwegian port of Kirkenes last Saturday, and turned off its radio signals. Once the ship had changed course and began heading for the Prirazlomnaya platform, the FSB decided to act. Warning shots were fired and two climbers on the rig were arrested earlier in the week.

When the ship's captain refused to turn back or respond to commands on Thursday, the FSB said it took the decision to act. About 15 armed men boarded the boat via helicopter, according to activists on board.

Ben Ayliffe, the head of Greenpeace International's Arctic oil campaign, said he was speaking to one of the activists via satellite phone during the storming, and could hear shouts and banging.

"They used violence against some of us. They were hitting people, kicking people down, pushing people," Faiza Oulahsen, one of the activists aboard the ship, said in a call to Reuters on Thursday evening.

Nothing has been heard from the activists since. The Russian coastguard said that the ship's captain was refusing to operate the ship, so an official boat was towing the Arctic Sunrise west towards Murmansk.

Greenpeace insists the ship was in international waters when it was boarded, and said there had been no formal notification of possible charges, nor offers of access to legal or consular assistance. The ship was 34 nautical miles from the closest Russian shore, according to the activists, which would put it in an area known as the Exclusive Economic Zone of Russia but not in the country's territorial waters.

The FSB said it was co-ordinating actions with the foreign ministry, Gazprom and oil company Rosneft "to protect the safety of the crew on the platform and defend the interests of the Russian Federation in the Arctic region".

The regional press office of the FSB in Murmansk told Russian agencies that it had received information from representatives of the Prirazlomnaya platform earlier in the week that they feared a terrorist act was about to be carried out, and said that activists were approaching the rig with an "unidentified object that looks like an explosive device". Greenpeace claimed this was disingenuous, as its "safety pod" is brightly coloured and branded with the organisation's logo.

Greenpeace has long warned that the start of oil drilling at Prirazlomnaya could have disastrous environmental repercussions. "The rig is a rusting hulk in the middle of the Arctic that is about to start pumping oil from the Arctic for the first time," said Ayliffe. "Gazprom has no way to clean up an oil spill if it happened, and it would cause huge damage to one of the most fragile natural environments on the planet."

The Arctic Sunrise ran a similar mission to Prirazlomnaya last year, and several activists again climbed on to the rig, but although they were observed by Russian authorities, there was none of the forceful reaction that occurred this time, Ayliffe said.

Vladimir Chuprov, the head of Greenpeace Russia's Arctic programmes, says the organisation is trying to arrange meetings with Russian officials to discuss the situation. A Greenpeace team is already in Murmansk awaiting the arrival of the boat, expected at some point on Monday.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/gre...tic?paging=off

Naomi Klein: Why Big Green Groups Can Be More Damaging Than Right-Wing Climate Deniers
In a new interview Klein says that it’s important to question why some big green groups have been so unwilling to follow science to its logical conclusions.


It's a long article. Here's a link:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/...limate-deniers

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/k...pipeline-deal/


A new study released Sunday concludes that Koch Industries and its subsidiaries stand to make as much as $100 billion in profits if the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is given the go-ahead by President Obama.

The report, titled “Billionaires’ Carbon Bomb,” and produced by the think tank International Forum on Globalization, finds that David and Charles Koch and their privately owned company, Koch Industries, own more than 2 million acres of land in Northern Alberta, the source of the tar-sands oil that will be pumped to the United States via the Keystone XL pipeline.

IFG also finds that more than 1,000 reports and statements in support of the Keystone XL pipeline project have been made by policy groups and think tanks that receive funding from the Koch brothers and their philanthropic foundations.

“The Kochs have repeatedly claimed that they have no interest in the Keystone XL Pipeline, this report shows that is false.” Said Nathalie Lowenthal-Savy, a researcher with IFG. “We noticed Koch Funded Tea Party members and think tanks pushing for the pipeline. We dug deeper and found $100 billion in potential profit, $50 million sent to organizations supporting the pipeline, and perhaps 2 million acres of land. That sounds like an interest to me.” Nathalie continued, “We all know they will use that money to fund and expand their influence network, subvert democracy, crush unions like in Wisconsin, and get more extremists elected to congress.”

Monsanto's Very Bad Week: 3 Big Blows for GMO Food
Why are Monsanto and the junk food industry willing to spend many tens of millions of dollars every year trying to keep you in the dark about your food?

http://www.alternet.org/food/monsant...blows-gmo-food

Groups Sue FDA Over 'Unlawful and Irresponsible' Approval of Frankenfish
'This case is about protecting our fisheries and ocean ecosystems from the foreseeable harms of the first-ever GE fish.'

A coalition of environmental, consumer, and fishing organizations on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approving the first-ever genetically engineered (GE) animal for commercial sale and consumption—an Atlantic salmon, known colloquially as the "Frankenfish."

The lawsuit (pdf), filed by the Center for Food Safety, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice, and other groups, states that the FDA does not have the authority to regulate GE animals and that approving the salmon paves the way for other GE fish, as well as farm animals like chickens, cows, and pigs, which the coalition says are currently in development.

The administration has previously claimed it did have the power, under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was crafted to ensure safety of veterinary drugs administered to treat disease in livestock.

"FDA's decision is as unlawful as it is irresponsible," said George Kimbrell, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety and one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. "This case is about protecting our fisheries and ocean ecosystems from the foreseeable harms of the first-ever GE fish, harms FDA refused to even consider, let alone prevent."

The salmon, which is being engineered by the biotechnology firm AquaBounty, was approved in November despite widespread outcry from advocates who said the fish pose too many risks to public health and the environment to authorize. The company plans to manufacture the eggs on Prince Edward Island in Canada, then ship them to laboratories in Panama, where they will be grown to full size.

From there, they will be sent to the U.S. for sale and consumption.

The journey in total comprises about 5,000 miles.

The Center for Food Safety and other groups threatened at the time to file an "emergency lawsuit" against the FDA for the move.

As Common Dreams reported:
For years, critics have warned that GMO salmon threaten wildlife populations, particularly through the potential for cross-breeding. Indeed, just a day before the FDA's announcement, a coalition of environmental groups sued the Canadian government for approving AquaBounty's request to manufacture the salmon eggs on Prince Edward Island (PEI) and ship them to laboratories in Panama, where they will be grown to adult size.

The plaintiffs in that case said the government ignored its own scientific findings to approve the bid, after the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans reported in May that GMO salmon were more susceptible to disease-causing bacteria and had other inconsistent performance issues.

"FDA has not answered crucial questions about the environmental risks posed by these fish or what can happen when these fish escape," Brettny Hardy, an attorney for Earthjustice and another of the coalition's counsels, said Thursday. "We need these answers now and the FDA must be held to a higher standard."

"We are talking about the mass production of a highly migratory GE fish that could threaten some of the last remaining wild salmon on the planet," Hardy said. "This isn't the time to skimp on analysis and simply hope for the best."

http://commondreams.org/news/2016/03...al-frankenfish

This freaks me out.

I pay more for wild salmon than buying farm-raised after I read why the color in farm-raised salmon looks different than wild salmon. I am sure that it is just as good for you (hopefully) but sometimes when I find out the truth of things; I can't get it past my gag reflex.

I won't be buying the frankenfish either.


So why is wild salmon a deeper red than farmed salmon?

Unlike beef, which acquires its distinct red hue from contact with oxygen in the air, salmon meat gains its color through the fish’s diet. Out in the ocean, salmon eat lots of small free-floating crustaceans, such as tiny shrimp.

These crustaceans are filled with molecules called carotenoids, which show up as pigments all over the tree of life. In fact, if you’ve ever known a kid who turned orange from eating too many carrots, you’ve seen carotenoids in action. It’s these carotenoids that account for the reddish color of the salmon, as well as the pink color of flamingoes and the red of a boiled lobster.

Farmed salmon, however, aren’t fed crustaceans. Instead, they eat dry pellets that look like dog food. According to the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association, salmon chow includes ingredients such as “soybean meal, corn gluten meal, canola meal, wheat gluten and poultry by-products.” Carotenoids, which are also essential for regular growth, can also be added to help give the fish its distinctive color.

http://scienceline.org/2013/09/ever-...farmed-salmon/

Unfortunately you might not know. In approving the GE salmon, FDA determined it would not require labeling of the GE fish to let consumers know what they are buying, so a grocery store could be selling it or a restaurant could be serving it and would not have to disclose that information. Congress attached something to the 2016 omnibus spending bill that will allow states to require labeling so in time your state might require stores to tell you, but right now it's a secret.

What really worries me is how different these genetically altered salmon are from real salmon. They interact differently, they stay apart and they eat a lot more because of the added other fish DNA to stimulate growth. Also they are not good at fighting disease and are more susceptible to bacteria. If, or should I say when, they enter the wild they will cause much damage. This breach could occur where they will be grown in Panama or perhaps the eggs in PEI or in the US, but it is pretty much a guarantee that it will happen. They will enter the ocean at some point. It is just a bad idea all around. And it's not even necessary. There is no real idea what will be the result of this invasive species on wild salmon and the ocean.

Water
 

Water, as an environmental issue is an huge concern for all of humanity and sentient beings.

A few years ago, during my final semester in graduate school, Maude Barlow was on campus to deliver an timely message on water. I even created an thread here on the boards about it.

Back then, Canadian activist Maude Barlow message centered on the idea that five years from 2009, water diversity would perilously be near toxic levels of pollution. She claimed that water should be protected as an human right. To have laws drawn and policy created to protect the last bastion of earth's precious life saving element --- water.

LINK:

http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/foru...805#post109805


This year marks the huge environmental disaster that has ruled the lives of people living in Flint, Michigan. A few years ago, the little heard story of the city of Spokane, Washington finally recognized the way the Spokane river and surrounding watersheds of the Palouse was filled with toxins (PCBs, et al). The city of Spokane filed suit against Monsanto. But nothing much had been done to restore the river or watersheds of the northeast sector of Washington. The Spokane river, the Snake river, and other rivers flow into the mighty Columbia river... which the Willamette river and the Columbia River empty into the Pacific ocean........

Insecticides by Monsanto, toxic waste from industrial belts in Northeast sectors of the US, fracking wastes and toxins in the heart of the Midwest and southwest, and all kinds of other environmental issues are affecting the way humans barely stay alive.

Will there be any life in the year 2525 (if 'man' is still alive)?

We need people to rise up and come together to take action.

Before it's too late.

The frankenfish, fish found to contain horse estrogen from water run-off into lakes, fish containing hormones from human birth control pills, as well as BPA's and don't even get me started on antibiotics used in cows and chickens (contributing to antibiotic resistance): WTF is left to eat?

You might say vegetables but there are issues there too. I won't get into that!

The more I research, the less I want to know but we have to know, don't we?

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.o...active-in-fish

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...cientists-say/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-s...eat-1449238059

Five Pacific Islands Officially Lost to Rising Seas

Five Pacific Islands have been swallowed by rising seas and coastal erosion, in what Australian researchers say is the first confirmation of what climate change will bring.

The submerged region, which was part of the Solomon Islands archipelago and was above water as recently as 2014, was not inhabited by humans.

However, a further six islands are also experiencing "severe shoreline recession," which is forcing the populations in those settlements—some of which have existed since at least 1935—to flee, according to a study published last week in Environmental Research Letters.

Researchers used aerial and satellite images dating back to 1947 to track coastal erosion across 33 islands. At least 11 islands across the northern region of the archipelago "have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion," the study found.

"This is the first scientific evidence...that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people," the researchers wrote at Scientific American on Monday.

Lead author Dr. Simon Albert, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland, told Agence France-Presse that rates of sea level rise in the Solomons are almost three times higher than the global average.

The five that sank ranged in size from one to five hectares (roughly two to 12 acres) and supported "dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old," the researchers wrote for Scientific American, calling the event "a warning for the world."

Rates of sea level rise were substantially greater in areas exposed to high wave energy, the researchers found, "indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves."

That means islands exposed to higher wave energy in addition to sea level rise face faster and more widespread loss than sheltered islands.

They wrote:

"These higher rates are in line with what we can expect across much of the Pacific in the second half of this century as a result of human-induced sea-level rise. Many areas will experience long-term rates of sea-level rise similar to that already experienced in Solomon Islands in all but the very lowest-emission scenarios."

Understanding the factors that put certain regions at greater risk for coastal erosion is vital to help frontline communities adapt, the study concluded.

The families that have already been forced to relocate did so using their own limited resources and received little to no assistance from their government or international climate funds, the researchers noted. The exodus had the additional impact of fragmenting established communities of hundreds of people.

Melchior Mataki, who chairs the Solomon Islands' Natural Disaster Council, told the researchers, "This ultimately calls for support from development partners and international financial mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund. This support should include nationally driven scientific studies to inform adaptation planning to address the impacts of climate change in Solomon Islands."

The Solomon Islands were among the 175 nations that signed the Paris climate agreement in New York last month.

http://commondreams.org/news/2016/05...st-rising-seas

http://commondreams.org/news/2016/05...o-latest-spill

'Status Quo': Shell Spews Nearly 90,000 Gallons of Oil into Gulf of Mexico in Latest Spill

Royal Dutch Shell's offshore drilling operations were pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, ultimately releasing nearly 90,000 gallons of oil into the water off the Louisiana coast.

"We have allowed the [Gulf] to be perpetually treated as a sacrifice zone—a place where we tolerate pollution and disasters to continue our dependence on fossil fuels."—Michael Brune, Sierra Club

The company said the spill was spotted above an underwater pipeline system, although specific details regarding the leak's cause were not made public.

The spill left a 13-by 2-mile sheen on the water, NBC reports. While the company assured reporters and government agencies that wells in the area had been shut off and the spill was being contained, local observers expressed deep skepticism.

"What we usually see in oil industry accidents like this is a gross understatement of the amount released and an immediate assurance that everything is under control, even if it's not," said Anne Rolfes, founding director of anti-offshore drilling group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. "This spill shows why there is a new and vibrant movement in the Gulf of Mexico for no new drilling."

Locals opposed to offshore drilling argue that oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico have become tragically commonplace. "According to the federal National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year," the Louisiana Bucket Brigade said.

This latest disaster occurred mere weeks after the six-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf and on the very same day that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held a hearing on the agency's next Five Year Plan for the Gulf of Mexico.

Thursday's BOEM hearing focused on the environmental impact statement of oil drilling in the Gulf. The Louisiana Bucket Brigade reported that locals discovered and collected tarballs in the Gulf's Grand Isle last month—demonstrating that "BOEM's environmental impact assessment is inadequate."

"It's unacceptable that oil spills have been permitted to become the status quo in the Gulf," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune in response to this latest disaster. "From Deepwater Horizon to the Taylor Well to Shell's latest disaster, we have allowed the region to be perpetually treated as a sacrifice zone—a place where we tolerate pollution and disasters to continue our dependence on fossil fuels."

Activists nationwide are urging President Obama to put a stop to all oil and gas leases in the Gulf to prevent such disasters from continuing.

Indeed, the global environmental campaign Break Free from Fossil Fuels has planned a march in Washington, D.C. on Sunday to call for an end to offshore drilling.

"This practice must end now," Brune said. "Hundreds of thousands of people have mobilized across the country, and thousands more will march in Washington, D.C. this Sunday calling for President Obama to protect our waters and coastal communities from offshore drilling."

'If We Don't Lead This Fight, Who Will?' Tribal Leaders Demand Army Corps Stop Pipeline
Indigenous people and supporters hand-deliver letters of protest to Army Corps of Engineers in Nebraska

Native Americans are fighting not only on their own behalf, but for the rights of all people to clean water: "The thousands of Indians who are camping to prevent the pipeline from being built—they are fighting not only for their safety and their protection of their water supply. They are also fighting to protect the water supply of the entire region, for the farmers and ranchers who live along the river."

The battle between corporate interests and activists is heating up: currently, dueling lawsuits regarding the pipeline are wending their way through the courts. "The main company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, is set to make its case in a North Dakota court today against the thousands of protesters," Politico notes, while water protectors await a Friday decision from a federal judge in response to their request for an injunction against the pipeline's construction.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...-stop-pipeline


Dakota Pipeline Was Approved by Army Corps Over Objections of Three Federal Agencies

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/3...al-environment

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...da&oe=587C212C

“Stop. This is crazy. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. The devastation that it has already caused is beyond comprehension. We can’t live without these honeybees” said Stanley. Jason Ward, Dorchester County Administrator, has stated the spraying happened because four people in the county were already infected, worrying residents.

Millions of honeybees killed by spraying in one county in one state alone. The devastation done to a bee population barely recovering will be unprecedented.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/mil...praying-naled/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/health/florida-zika-spraying-
starts/

Zika on steroids: How the Christian Right’s sex hangups turn Zika into a bigger crisis

http://www.salon.com/2016/09/07/zika...risis_partner/

Zika could have been an ordinary epidemic, like the ever-changing influenza that emerges each winter and spreads across the Northern Hemisphere with sad but rare complications. But the Religious Right’s antagonism to birth control and abortion — and honest conversation about sex in general — has transformed the Zika epidemic into a nightmare that will devastate lives for an entire generation.

In the absence of pregnancy, Zika usually isn’t a big deal. Only one in five people who contract Zika experience symptoms, and those who do mostly feel like they’ve gotten the flu. This is not to say Zika never does lasting harm to adults, just that, like the flu, those cases appear to be rare.

The difference, as most people now know, is that getting Zika while pregnant is really, really bad. The virus attacks the fetal nervous system, eating brain structures that have already developed and blocking development of others. Even babies who look normal may be damaged for life.

Unlike the flu, when it comes to Zika, pregnancy prevention or timing is everything.

Even if Zika spreads across its potential range of 41 states, a quick and targeted response could make lasting harm rare, at least within U.S. borders. The solution is simple and relatively cheap, but it consists of policies that the sex-obsessed, patriarchy-protecting Religious Right has been opposing for decades:

Information. Launch a huge public education campaign so all couples know how to prevent mistimed or unwanted pregnancy and can delay parenthood until the time is safe. Currently a third of pregnancies globally and almost half in the United States are accidents, with some of the highest rates where Zika-carrying mosquitos live.
Contraception. Make state-of-the-art birth control available to all free of charge, including the very best IUDs and implants, which drop the accidental pregnancy rate below one in 500. (With the pill that’s one in 11; with condoms one in six; with the rhythm method it’s closer to one in four.)
Abortion. Ensure that couples who discover microcephaly and other fetal defects in utero can, if they prefer, abort a diseased pregnancy and start over. Millions of healthy children exist in this world only because their parents receive the mercy of a fresh start (like I did).
Each of these steps is easier and cheaper than trying to eradicate mosquitos, prevent people from getting bitten, or develop and distribute a vaccine. With existing contraceptive knowledge and technologies, birth defects from Zika could drop to near zero. The problem is not a lack of means; it’s a lack of will brought on by religious teachings that generate resistance and controversy around anything that has to do with sex, gender roles or reproduction.

You reap what you sow

No matter what, tragic birth defects from Zika would have hit some families as the virus spreads out of Africa where it is endemic (and where most women appear to have immunity before they reach reproductive age). But without relentless promotion of ignorance and falsehood by priests and pastors — without anti-contraception campaigning by the Vatican in particular — birth defects from Zika would be a small fraction of what humanity now faces.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...ing-rock-sioux

US Government Steps In After Judge Rules Against Standing Rock Sioux
Federal judge denies tribe's request for injunction, but federal agencies issue statement pausing pipeline construction

A series of "game-changing" developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing.

Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's attempt to halt its construction.

Shortly afterward, however, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement indicating that "important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding [DAPL] specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain."

As a result, the statement read, construction on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe—which straddles North and South Dakota—will be halted until the Corps "can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws."

"In the interim," the agencies continued, "we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe."

The statement continued:

Furthermore, this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects. Therefore, this fall, we will invite tribes to formal, government-to-government consultations on two questions: (1) within the existing statutory framework, what should the federal government do to better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions and the protection of tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights; and (2) should new legislation be proposed to Congress to alter that statutory framework and promote those goals.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who on Thursday proposed legislation that would prevent the Army Corps from approving the pipeline until the agency has completed an environmental impact statement, praised the agencies' decision.

As Common Dreams has reported extensively, the Standing Rock Sioux had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' $3.8 billion pipeline, saying that the project violates federal laws—including the Clean Water Act and National Historic Preservation Act—and would endanger both water supplies and ancient sacred sites.

But in his decision (pdf), U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., said "the Tribe has not carried its burden to demonstrate that the Court could prevent damage to important cultural resources by enjoining the Corps' DAPL-related permitting."

He ordered the parties to appear for a status conference on Sept. 16.

Still, those who have voiced their opposition to the controversial project said they'd fight on.

In the lead-up to the ruling, tribal chairman David Archambault II declared: "Regardless of the court's decision today, we will continue to be united and peaceful in our opposition to the pipeline. Our ultimate goal is permanent protection of our sacred sites and our water. We must continue to have faith and believe in the strength of our prayers and not do anything in violence. We must believe in the creator and good things will come."

Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit in July on behalf of the tribe, said in the days before the ruling that it would be challenged.

A press conference and protest will take place at the North Dakota Capitol starting at 3pm local time on Friday. Solidarity events are planned nationwide next week.

Updates are being shared under the hashtags #NoDAPL, #RezpectOurWater, and #StandWithStandingRock.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...ontinues-apace

Toxic Slime Spreads Across World's Oceans as Climate Disruption Continues Apace

It is August 30. I'm in Anchorage, Alaska, and it's hot. Very hot. In fact, it's the fourth straight day of record high temperatures, amidst a year that has seen record high temperatures becoming normalized across the entire state.

Two days ago, this city (the most populous in Alaska) saw a record high temperature of 78 degrees, which beat the previous record by a whopping seven degrees.

Last night, I returned here from a trip with the US Geological Survey (USGS), during which we measured the Gulkana Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range. Almost needless to say, the glacier, like thousands across this northernmost state, is melting rapidly and is in full retreat.

I asked one of the USGS researchers studying this glacier to share his feelings about what is happening to the glaciers in his home state of Alaska.

Climate Disruption Dispatches"You see stuff and it's hard to believe it sometimes," Shad O'Neel, a USGS research geophysicist says as we sit talking in a meeting room at the USGS office complex in Anchorage. "The scale that is happening, like hiking into Gulkana [Glacier], the stream you follow up to it, it branches into two before you get to the glacier."

As we talk, we are both cognizant of the fact that it is warming rapidly outside, and the forecast is for more of the same.

"When I was in grad school, the terminus of the glacier was at that river branch, which is now one kilometer from the terminus," he says. "Last year I was there, and I realized it wasn't that long ago I was in school, and now look at how much ice is just gone. It's a lot of ice. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how fast it has been happening just in the past few years."

He pauses, then says, "There was a while when it was warmer but the glaciers hadn't quite responded yet, but now we're really seeing the change in them, and it's accelerating."

It has been amazing and disturbing to be in Alaska for much of the summer as one record after another is broken. The contrast between spending time on glaciers, on Denali (the highest mountain peak in North America) and in some of the most remote areas of the state wilderness -- bearing witness to the grandeur of nature -- and then coming back to Anchorage between each trip to read about record temperatures has been heartbreaking. But I know the reports are true: I've seen firsthand the glaciers retreating so quickly that even the glaciologists here are shaking their heads.

Anchorage, at the time of this writing, had seen a record 77-day run of higher-than-previous temperatures, with its low temperatures all at or above 50 degrees. This shattered the previous such record of 53 days, which was just set three years prior.

Anchorage-based National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Wegman told the Anchorage Dispatch News of these phenomena, "The top four (low-temperature runs) were in the last four years. These are very late to be having temperatures this high."

He went on to predict, "We're going to be around record territory for quite a while yet."

The march of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) across Alaska and the rest of the Arctic is glaringly apparent.

The most detailed study to date shows that Arctic sea ice-melt over the last 20 years is "unprecedented" and "enormously outside the bounds of natural variability." Julienne Stroeve with the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said that the Arctic sea ice has not been at levels as low as it is today for at least 5,000 to 7,000 years. Stroeve noted, "Some other studies have suggested at least 800,000 years."

"Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice," Dr. Peter Wadhams, who has spent his entire scientific career involved in dozens of trips to study the Arctic, told The Guardian recently. Wadhams, who was one of the very first scientists to warn that the thick Arctic icecap was beginning to thin, directed the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge from 1987 to 1992, and has been a professor of ocean physics at Cambridge since 2001.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on the disaster afflicting the Arctic (and the planet), a luxury cruise ship set sail from Seward, Alaska in late August en route to New York, via the Arctic. Upwards of 1,700 passengers and crew are, as you read this, riding aboard the "Crystal Serenity," with passengers paying from $22,000 per person for the trip, with some paying in the six-figure range. Those prices do not include helicopter rides or excursions onto the melting Greenland Ice Sheet, which will also be offered. The ship that is making its way through the fragile Arctic is 820 feet long with 13 decks, 535 staterooms, multiple swimming pools, a movie theater, a driving range and putting green, a casino, a spa, fitness center, hair salon and 24-hour room service.

The boat sold out quickly, and the company is already well into the planning of a second journey.

The tropics aren't faring any better than the Arctic, in the climate department.

A recent report showed that the carbon pledges made by 178 countries in Paris last December won't be nearly enough to save most tropical coral reefs and cloud forests, let alone preventing mass global extinctions.

Every day now brings us further into uncharted territory.

Earth

A recent study published in Scientific Reports showed that ACD is going to cause beaches to become saltier, which will likely lead to significant changes for birds, crabs and other creatures living on coasts.

Shocking news recently emerged from India, where over a quarter of that country's land is turning into desert thanks largely to ACD, according to a recently published study.

In the Western US, the American pika is vanishing across many mountain areas due to ACD, altering the habitat of the rabbit-like mammal according to recently released USGS findings. For example, in northeastern California, pikas were only found in 11 of 29 sites where they once lived.

In Scotland, a conservation group recently announced that rare mountain plants in the Scottish highlands are disappearing at an "alarming rate" and facing possible extinction due to ACD.

Back in Alaska, the city of Shishmaref -- which is located on an island that is being rapidly eroded by rising seas, melting permafrost and intensified storms -- has voted to relocate due to ACD. There are at least 31 other Alaskan Native villages threatened by ACD, which will eventually have to relocate as well.

Alaska, which has never had dog ticks before, is now threatened with exotic ticks, which have recently begun to establish themselves in the state. While researchers acknowledge that some of the ticks likely hitchhiked on dogs and humans, many of them did not. One variety, the American dog tick, transmits the bacterium that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It can also secrete a toxin that causes tick paralysis, which can be fatal in both dogs and humans, according to the researchers.

Water

The massive "blob" of overheated water in the Eastern Pacific that has been afflicting marine life along the US West Coast and Alaska for the last several years, persists. It has now become just another example of a growing global phenomenon of oceanic "heat waves." One has been impacting Australia recently as well.

Off the coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef recently experienced a massive coral bleaching event that killed off more than one-fifth of the reef.

Another recent report showed that ocean slime, composed of toxic algae blooms, is rapidly spreading across Earth as a result of warming ocean waters. The toxic algae is worsening dead zones and wiping out parts of the food chain for marine life, causing collapsing populations of sea lions, seals, various bird species and fish around the planet.

Meanwhile in the Arctic, fish populations are shifting rapidly as the sea ice dwindles. According to a recent report from the USGS and the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), at least 20 different species have now found their way into Arctic waters that had previously never been found there. Additionally, another 63 species have changed their ranges from what they used to be.

A recent study also showed that the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to melt extremely rapidly, losing the equivalent of 110 million Olympic-size swimming pools worth of water each year. In other words, 270 gigatons of ice have melted per year from 2011 to 2014. The study also showed that the melting in Greenland is continuing to accelerate with time.

Down in the Antarctic, a recent report showed that a massive rift is growing across the fragile Larsen C Ice Shelf. As the crack continues to spread at an accelerating rate, it threatens to release an iceberg the size of Delaware. More importantly, it will eventually destabilize an even larger area of ice, roughly the size of Scotland.

Back in the continental US, a massive fish kill in Yellowstone National Park caused authorities to close off a 183-mile portion of the river and its tributaries. The parasite that caused the die-off was helped along by the ACD-warmed river water.

Lastly, as the planet continues to warm and Canada experiences less and less snowfall, the country's ski resorts are attempting to "weatherproof" themselves from the impacts of ACD. This means they will be offering other things to do aside from skiing and snowboarding in the winter -- such as mountain biking, eco-tours and Iron Man competitions. Earlier this year, British Columbia's world-renowned Whistler Blackcomb resort announced a $345 million plan to become "weather independent," whatever that means.

Fire

Given that much of the Northern Hemisphere is in the warmest portion of summer of the hottest year on record (thus far), it should not come as a surprise that there is a preponderance of major wildfires.

In the US, record temperatures and an ongoing five-year-long drought across most of California caused one fire to burn well over 30,000 acres, forcing more than 82,000 people to evacuate.

More than 170 square miles, and counting, have been burned across California during this wildfire season alone.

A recently published study shows that both California's wildfire season and its air quality will be getting worse with time. The study outlines the obvious: Warmer temperatures and drought across California are expected to continue, hence setting the stage for more and larger wildfires, which will bring far more smoke, ash and particulate.

Furthermore, according to the US Forest Service, there are at least 66 million dead trees located across 760,000 acres in the Southern Sierra Nevada, which are essentially a massive wildfire waiting to happen.

Air

NASA's top climate scientist, Gavin Schmidt, who directs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently said that Earth is warming at a pace not seen for at least the past 1,000 years, which means it is "very unlikely" that global temperatures will stay below the 1.5C limit agreed to in Paris. "In the last 30 years, we've really moved into exceptional territory," Schmidt told the Guardian US. "It's unprecedented in 1,000 years."

"Maintaining temperatures below the 1.5C guardrail requires significant and very rapid cuts in carbon dioxide emissions or coordinated geoengineering," he added. "That is very unlikely. We are not even yet making emissions cuts commensurate with keeping warming below 2C."

While it has been discussed before, an international team of researchers recently stated that Earth has now been pushed into the Anthropocene epoch, due to ACD, the spread of plastics, and new metals and concrete. This is the first new geological epoch for the Earth in more than 11,500 years, and it is due to the intensely rapid industrialization of the planet over the course of the last century.

Denial and Reality

Willful ACD denial, while still alive and well in the fossil-fuel-funded political corridors of the US federal government, is currently taking a serious (and much-needed) attack.

A recently released report by the environmental advocacy group Climate Investigations Center showed that at least 18 major companies have departed from the two primary coal lobbying groups, the National Mining Association and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, since 2009. Some of those leaving are doing so because of the lobbying groups' so-called climate science.

Other significant strides are being made on the reality front.

Across the Atlantic, The Netherlands could become the first country in the world to ban gas- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2025 if members of the Dutch Labour Party get their way. These politicians have put forth their proposal.

"We need to phase out CO2 emissions and we need to change our pattern of using fossil fuels if we want to save the Earth," John Vos, a member of the Dutch Labour Party, told the Yale Climate Connection.

National Public Radio recently ran a story addressing the issue of overpopulation. The story features Travis Rieder, a philosopher with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, who is visiting classrooms in order to encourage students to consider the ramifications of population growth during runaway ACD.

Considering the fact that there will be 240,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren't there last night, and that we are adding the equivalent of a city the size of Houston to the planet every month, and a country the size of Egypt every year, Rieder is giving folks something to consider.

Meanwhile, another recently published study showed that anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to increase the Earth's temperatures nearly two centuries ago when the Industrial Revolution began to pick up steam, thus challenging the widely held notion that ACD only began in the 20th century.

Another reality check came recently in the form of a striking piece in the Guardian, which outlined how national parks across the US are being utterly hammered by ACD.

"An NPS [National Park Service] study from 2014 found four in five of America's national parks are now at the 'extreme end' of temperature variables charted since 1901," the article reads. It goes on to quote Gregor Schuurman, an ecologist at the NPS climate change response program: "We are starting to see things spiral away now…. We are going to look back at this time and actually think it was a calm period. And then people will start asking questions about what we were doing about the situation."

The article draws attention to several stark realities, including the fact that since 1968, the number of glaciers at Glacier National Park has fallen by half. Researchers predict that by the middle of the 21st century, if conditions remain similar, all of the park's glaciers will be gone.

What will Glacier National Park be called when all of its glaciers have disappeared?

Lastly, a recent report warned that we are already locked into far more planetary warming than most folks realize. Given that humans continue to inject over 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually, and the fact that what is already there has us locked into (conservatively) another 1.5-3C of warming in the coming decades, the new climate reality is upon us.

After spending a summer traversing much of Alaska while doing climate disruption research, I know that Alaska is no longer the Alaska of American folklore. It's also no longer the Alaska I knew 20 years ago. The glaciers are melting and receding at record paces, and the long, frigidly cold winters are no longer nearly as cold as they once were.

Alaska, along with the rest of the Arctic, is truly the canary in the proverbial coal mine. It is sending us a clear message: We are already living in a new world -- a world definitively shaped by anthropogenic climate disruption.

Mass Fish Die-Offs Are the New Normal: Climate Change Shuts Down a Montana River

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...-montana-river

http://www.truth-out.org/images/Imag...llowstone1.jpg

"People keep referring to 'abnormal' conditions and 'extreme' events," Alsentzer said. "Those abnormal conditions and extreme events are not a temporary situation and they are no longer abnormal. The years of high snowpack, strong and stable run-off and resilient rivers are now the abnormal years. The future is here, this is happening to all of us, this is the new normal."

To many, the fish kill is a symptom of an ecosystem in crisis. Montana, similar to the rest of the western United States, is already experiencing serious impacts from climate change. The state is hotter and drier; snowpack is decreasing; wildfires are becoming more severe and begin sooner; spring run-off from the mountains happens earlier every year; and there is less water in the rivers. Montana has already warmed 2 degrees Celsius and is expected to experience a temperature rise of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius by 2055. A 2 degree C rise is already causing dramatic changes to the West's river systems.

"The conditions that are giving rise to these events are no longer temporary," Alsentzer said. "We need to come around the table and talk about the facts. What are the new realities that cannot be debated? Our rivers are a shared public trust resource. We all need to be talking about how we can do better."

"If we really want to protect rivers like the Yellowstone, we need to kick our addiction to fossil fuels and stop raising the planet's thermostat. This is a huge problem that requires a serious political solution. Wishful thinking and band-aids aren't going to cut it. Citizens need to wake up and demand that Congress take climate change seriously."

How Big Pharma’s Industrial Waste Is Fueling the Rise in Superbugs Worldwide

Pharmaceutical companies are fuelling the rise of superbugs by manufacturing drugs in factories that leak industrial waste, says a new report which calls on them to radically improve their supply chains.

Factories in China and India – where the majority of the world’s antibiotics are produced – are releasing untreated waste fluid containing active ingredients into surrounding areas, highlights the report by a coalition of environmental and public health organisations.

Ingredients used in antibiotics get into the local soil and water systems, leading to bacteria in the environment becoming resistant to the drugs. They are able to exchange genetic material with other nearby germs, spreading antibiotic resistance around the world, the report claims.

Ahead of a United Nations summit on antimicrobial resistance in New York next week, the report – by the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and pressure group Changing Markets – calls on major drug companies to tackle the pollution which is one of its root causes.

They say the industry is ignoring the pollution in its supply chain while it drives the proliferation of drug resistant bacteria – a phenomenon which kills an estimated 25,000 people across Europe and globally poses “as big a threat as terrorism,” according to NHS England’s Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies.

If no action is taken antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will kill 10 million people worldwide every year – more than cancer – according to an independent review into AMR last year led by economist Professor Jim O’Neill.

Changing Markets compiled previous detailed reports and conducted its own on-the-ground research looking at a range of Chinese and Indian drug manufacturing plants making products for some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. One of the world’s biggest antibiotic production plants, in Inner Mongolia, was found in 2014 to be “pumping tonnes of toxic and antibiotic-rich effluent waste into the fields and waterways surrounding the factory,” according to Chinese state television.

In India, where much of the raw material produced by Chinese factories is turned into finished drugs, various studies have found “high levels of hazardous waste” and “large volumes of effluent waste” being dumped into the environment. About a quarter of UK medicines are made in India.

The factory pollution mixes with waste from farms and sewage plants, providing an ideal breeding ground for the drug-resistant bacteria. Once established in the environment, the germs can spread around the world through air and water, and by travellers visiting countries where the bacteria are prevalent.

A drug-resistant bacteria first found in India in 2014 has since been found in more than 70 countries around the world, the report highlights.

Most major drug companies display a “shocking lack of concern” about pollution in their supply chains, Changing Markets claims. It is calling for companies that fail to demand environmentally sound manufacturing and waste treatment techniques from their suppliers to be blacklisted.

Large purchasers of medicines, including health services, hospitals and pharmacies should push for cleaner production processes, it adds.

Natasha Hurley, a spokeswoman for Changing Markets, said: “Big Pharma’s role in fuelling drug resistance is all too often overlooked when policies to curb the spread of AMR are being discussed.

“Our research has shown that the industry is failing to take the necessary action to address the threat of a looming environmental and public health crisis in which it is playing a key part.”

Modern medical systems rely on antibiotics to prevent people becoming ill with bacterial infections.

The drugs also prevent infection during surgery and treatments like chemotherapy, which can wipe out the body’s immune system.

As the bugs become resistant to the drugs used to treat them, experts fear more people will die of infections – and common medical procedures will become high risk.

Next week global leaders will meet for a United Nations conference in New York to discuss the growing problem of AMR.

Resistance is fuelled by the overuse of antibiotics in farming as well as in human medicine, a topic the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been researching for more than six months.

Earlier this year, the Bureau analysed figures released by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, which regulates what drugs vets prescribe for use in British farming and agriculture, and revealed a significant increase in sales of some critically important antibiotics.

A “critically important” antibiotic is one which is either the sole treatment option or one of few alternatives for a serious infectious disease in humans.

They also treat diseases humans can catch from non-human sources such as animals, water, food or the environment, including some drug-resistant diseases.

The rise in sales of critically important antibiotics is happening despite the fact it is now known that resistant forms of certain food poisoning illnesses, including campylobacter, and some variations of the superbug MRSA, are directly linked to antibiotic use on farms.

In April, the Bureau revealed growing levels of resistance among campylobacter bacteria, which is commonly found in supermarket chickens. The bug infects up to 300,000 people in the UK each year, hospitalising about 1,000 and killing about 100.

Previously unpublished data collated by Public Health England showed almost one in two of all human campylobacter cases tested in England was resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin.

Ciprofloxacin is one of several drugs doctors can turn to when victims of food poisoning develop complications, and is also used to treat other conditions such as urinary tract infections.

Responding the EPHA and Changing Markets’ report, Emma Rose from the campaign group the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics said: “Today’s briefing casts light on how big polluting factories are fueling the emergence of drug resistant bacteria.

“With prescribers of both human and veterinary medicine increasingly urged to take action on antibiotics, the pharmaceutical industry must now play its part in tackling this crisis.”

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.co...ugs-worldwide/

I'm really worried about the Dekota Indians and how they are being treated just because they want too protect the sacret ground bariels there. :-(

Ton's of Trash
 

It looks like Ecotoxicology scientists and researchers found tons of trash on an deserted island in the South Pacific; yet the island is uninhabited by human's, yet the human footprint of tons of trash wash up on the shores daily.

https://weather.com/science/environm...istine-garbage